Consumers desire to use cosmetic and personal care compositions that enhance the appearance of keratin fibers, such as hair, by changing the color of the hair and/or by imparting various properties to hair, for example, shine and conditioning. The process of changing the color of hair can involve depositing a color onto the hair, which provides a different shade or color to the hair, and/or lifting the color of the hair.
Lightening or lifting the color of the hair is typically evaluated by the variation in tone height before and after the application of a hair color-altering composition onto hair. This variation corresponds to the degree or level of lightening or lift. The notion of “tone” is based on the classification of the natural shades, one tone separating each shade from the shade immediately following or preceding it, which is well known to hairstyling professionals. The tone heights or levels range from 1 (black) to 10 (light blond), one unit corresponding to one tone; thus, the higher the number, the lighter the shade or the greater the degree of lift.
In general, hair lightening or color lifting compositions may include the presence of oil-based raw materials such as hydrogenated polydecene, usually at low concentrations around 2%. While it may be beneficial for a hair lightening or color lifting composition to comprise a higher concentration of oil, adding high concentrations of oil will result in a clumpy and moist product that is not free flowing and not in powder form.
Thus, in order to reduce or avoid the drawbacks above, as well as to improve the cosmetic performance of hair lightening or color lifting compositions, the use of new and additional ingredients and novel combinations of ingredients are continuously sought. However, the choice of ingredients or combinations of ingredients could pose difficulties insofar as they cannot be detrimental to other cosmetic attributes such as ease and uniformity of application, rheology or viscosity properties and stability of the compositions, color deposit and target shade formation, and/or result into more disadvantages such as increased damage or a less healthy look to the hair. It is therefore desirable to provide the consumer with compositions and methods that can lift the color of hair and optionally deposit color onto hair in an efficient or improved manner, while preventing excess damage to the hair and/or providing other cosmetic advantages such as shine, conditioning, and a healthy appearance to the hair.
The disclosed embodiments provide a composition in the form of a powder with high concentrations of oil and method for altering the color of hair.
It has now been surprisingly and unexpectedly discovered that combining a free-flowing powdered oil mixture with an oxidizing mixture creates a hair color-altering composition that is then mixed with an oil-rich developer, for example, Chromatics 20V Developer, to produce a 2-part bleach system. The developer can, in various embodiments, be added before application to the hair. The powdered oil mixture comprises from about 1% to about 50% of at least one starch, from about 1% to about 50% of at least one liquid fatty substance, and from about 0.5% to about 40% of at least one silica material. The oxidizing mixture comprises from about 1% to about 40% of at least one oxidizing agent, from about 0.5% to about 30% of at least one acrylic polymer, and from about 0.1% to about 10% of at least one chelant compound.
A conventional 3-part bleach system comprises bleach powder, a booster, and the oil-rich developer. A 2-part bleach system described herein is easier and more convenient to mix and combine than a 3-part bleach system because there are only two parts to the system, the hair color-altering composition and the oil-rich developer. In a 3-part bleach system, any oil present in the system is due to the oil-rich developer. The 2-part bleach system has a high concentration of oil because oil is present in both the hair color-altering composition and the oil-rich developer. This high concentration of oil has been found, at least in certain embodiments, to increase the degree of lift and improve the overall appearance of the hair.